Alberta

Chapter Thirty Nine: A family divided

It had been another week at my dads. Ben hadn't made contact yet and I was giving him the space he needed to navigate, what to him was a huge loss. I had sent Willa the emails, all of them like a mass exodus from my unsent box. I was finally in a place where I wanted her to have everything from me, every word and every heartfelt letter since we had parted all those years ago. I wanted non doubts left of my intentions and love for her. Ben deleting my words last week, my emails, it was like he had stolen parts of me that I had saved for Willa. I realised then that they needed to be sent, safely, to her where they should be, so that she would always have them. Luckily for me Abe is a tech wiz and retrieved everything that Ben had deleted.

"Wow Allie... there's a lot here" he had said as he glanced down the emails he had retrieved from permanent deletion.

"All for Willa" he mused, and then he had looked at me, taken a second to think, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

"Allie... I had no idea" he had confessed. "No idea at all... has this been a thing for a long time" he had asked.

I nodded unsure of what he would say.

"Abe I've loved Willa all of my life... of course it's been from afar until recently... but yes... a long time if you count my entire existence bar five years"

He nods and quietly assesses the situation in his mind. My mother and father had raised us in the church but most definitely on the more liberal side. They had loved aspects of the church and were faithful members, but there was a grey area for them. They had felt much more that a choice was a persons and no church or institution should take that away, and they wanted all of their children to make their own decisions and have their own personal testament, unforced. Abe had been on a mission before college, coming home and starting a degree soon after, he had spent his mission in the UK and loved every second but I knew that he wasn't the type to judge or hold me down to the flame if I wondered from his own views.

"Well I just want you to be happy Alberta...like mama always used to say... let it be your choice and if that choice brings you happiness than I'm all for it" and he smiles to let me know I'm safe with him. I think I almost push him from the computer chair as I wrap my arms around him.

"I love you Abraham Anderson" I whisper, and he squeezes my arm.

"I love you too Alberta" he says before we part.

Augusta had been the most shocked about the divorce and of my confession that I was in love with Willa Jameson. Merrit didn't seem to mind at all as long as I was happy, much like Abe. To Hyrum, I only confessed the divorce part because I didn't want him to know about Willa before Harper. He was too young, and he would tell her unlike my older siblings. He had just grunted, as a teenager he had no strong thoughts either way as he was much too caught up with his new girlfriend, Jane.

My dad had just smiled, looking at me fondly before remarking "you look lighter Alberta... much much lighter" and that was all, no big coming out dramas from my family, only love and a little shock. The shock was soon replaced by the love we as a family had been blessed with, taught to cherish and keep strong. For me this was our parents greatest gift to us, to practice love and acceptance as if it was the highest order. This was all I wanted for Harper, and she would most definitely always get that from me, her mama, and I hoped from Ben too.

Bens family, they would be a different story, and even if this didn't involve Willa, it would have been hard and torturous. They were deeply involved in church, had generations of family who were devoted and Christ like and then here I come about to destroy the perfect illusion. To them I would break their sons heart and his marriage, a sealed marriage in the temple. Oh it was beyond anything they had ever faced before. I wasn't sure anyone in their families history had dealt with divorce. When I add Willa to this, when they finally get the entire story... I wasn't sure even her mother would be able to handle that. It hurt me to consider that perhaps this revelation would be the final nail in Willa's coffin with her family. No matter what they heard or how it was explained, all they would ever see was that Willa had taken me away from Ben, and that her lifestyle had somehow filtrated and poisoned me. They would never understand this all began a long long time ago before Ben and I had even married... and this wasn't Willa's fault... it was mine for ever considering marriage to Ben, and for saying I do when I should have been finding Willa's bedroom empty, her possessions gone, and her on a bus out of town...